SOURCE: A review of Antipoems: New and Selected, in Library Journal, Vol. 110, No. 16, October 1, 1985, p. 103.

In the following review, Tammaro praises Parra's Antipoems: New and Selected.

Chilean poet and physicist Parra comes from the great tradition of Latin American writers who are outspoken opponents of social and political oppression. His "antipoems" are full of black humor, irony, irreverence ("Torture doesn't have to be / bloody / Take an intellectual for example—/ just hide his glasses"). They strip the human condition naked and place it before a mirror, exposing arrogance, pomposity, and foibles. Often epigrammatic and aphoristic, they shame us into recognition of our barbarity: "Good news! / in a million years the earth / will be whole again / We'll be the ones long gone." A generous sampling of early and recent work, and recommended for larger and foreign language poetry collections.